Hong Kong printing :

I think your first issue is to write the book. If you plan to self-publish in hard copy, you'll need to know the specs of the finished book before you can cost it. And there are other expenses before you even get to printing: editing, cover, design, layout etc. You'll be starting out with a big hole in your bank balance before you launch your book.

It might be worth finding out a bit more about the role of editors in publishing houses. I've met acquisitions editors, structural editors and copy editors who work/ed for trade publishers and not one of them drives a Porsche. What unites them is their love of books.

If you're asking what's to stop your book being pirated once it's out there, the answer - well, nothing really. But it's vanishingly unlikely, if for no other reason than that it really wouldn't give a good return for the labour. Presumably your printer is in the business because it works for them. Putting that at risk would be a very silly move for them to make.

Also your ideas on publishing and how it works are - kind of wrong. Which is not to say that self-publishing isn't the right move for you - if you have a niche book, and a ready though specific market for it, it's probably the best choice you could make; I have a friend who did very, very well out of self-pubbing the history of the school he'd been headmaster of for twenty-some years. But you'd want to make sure your best choice is grounded on facts, not misinformation.

Iain2 said:

Because of it and to have an Editor chuck my manuscript in the bin, simply because he’s just noticed Anna Burns’ name on the top of the pile; the system didn’t quite appeal to me.
In addition, being a serial entrepreneur, I also didn’t appreciate the idea of an ‘Editor’ driving around in a Porsche thanks to my years of hard work and research; while I receive a pittance for ‘every’ book sold.

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Iain that's not the way trade publishing works, honest. And a lot of our members are editors, so you're being rather insulting. Editors don't make a lot of money; in fact typesetters and book designers are generally paid more than editors. A typical editor's salary is roughly comparable to that of a school teacher, with fewer benefits.

Iain2 said:

I don’t want to go into the nitty-gritty of my business and financial plans, suffice it to say that I have a minimum of 500 potential contacts…, principally via the social media, all seven RHQs and other sources. (‘Septem Juncta In Uno’ - my book is regimental history)
Now…, I’ve been working intimately with Hong Kong for the past ten years, so I intend to have them print 500 books. (500 being the minimum quantity order) Although I’ve not yet contacted them concerning the costs as I’ve other more important issues to contend with, (like writing) I know from experience with having them print our catalogues, their average price is less than one third the price of what it would cost if I have the books printed here in Belgium.
(“500 exemplaires pour 8378 EUR+TVA”)

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500 hundred contacts isn't really very many. And a press run of 500 isn't going to make much money, because the price of the book as a product (raw costs of materials) doesn't include your labor, or that of a cover designer or typesetter or shipping (to you and your shipping to retailers/buyers).

Iain2 said:

What’s to stop the Chinese Company copying the contents (even if it is protected) and post it on some ‘Kindle’ or Alibaba site without permission ?
I ask that more through the fact that after selling the stock, I could then turn to an Editor saying; “here’s the proof that it sells”! He/she would then turn to their, outlets, but they’d then have Chinese competitors.
(an afterthought…, I suppose that’s the same for any book on the market !?!)

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Not a thing to stop them. Except it's not the kind of book that is pirate printed; it isn't popular enough to sell in large numbers (thousands of copies). What may be a difficulty (having worked with Chinese and Hong Kong printers) is that the level of censorship is increasing. Having a book in English may be a problem, but the Chinese government may object to the content. They've objected to essays about Chaucer and Beowulf as being culturally offensive.

If you're printing 500, you might want to float the idea of selling by subscription; this is often still done for scholarly books. People pay in advance, you ship them the book. But 500 isn't going to impress a publisher in terms of sales; 2000 copies is on the low end these days, in terms of sales.

But you do have contacts, you have a niche, both of which are good news.

Iain2 said:

I would also like to mention that because of my inexperience,

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Iain, your inexperience is leading you to make a lot of statements and claims that are fundamentally incorrect about publishing. This isn't a problem for you, because you've already made your decision to self-publish, which I think is exactly the right choice with a niche book in a niche market. But it does mean people are going to have to drop by this thread again to correct things for other newbies, in case they get muddled. In which spirit -

Being a debut writer is not a negative. All else being equal, a new author is a far more attractive proposition to an agent and a publisher than an author a few books in with a bad sales record.

'Editors' is a meaningless category - do you mean acquisitions editor, developmental editor, copy editor...? None of those people is in any way your 'boss'. You own the book. You make the changes you want to make.

There are other errors in your information, but these are two that I think really matter to any newbies reading the thread.

Good luck with the book.

Iain2 said:

Helix: Lol…, I know two Editors very well and one is regularly invited to Buckingham Palace garden parties and dines on a weekly basis with Officers in the Brigade of Guards. The other has a garage for four cars ! OK…, AW tells me that this is unusual.
As such and as we all know the price of a book, who, then, is earning the ‘real’ money ? It’s certainly not the writer !

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Not the editors.

For other readers of this thread: books don't appear from thin air. A trade publisher forks out money to acquire the book, have it edited (possibly more than one round), designed, typeset, printed, advertised, shipped, and so on.

Editor here.

Iain2 said:

Although writer’s block was a nuisance, it turned out to be more of an excuse in order to focus on all the other issues linked to selling books.

Having left school at the age of fifteen, I’m in no way an intellectual. Because of it and to have an Editor chuck my manuscript in the bin, simply because he’s just noticed Anna Burns’ name on the top of the pile; the system didn’t quite appeal to me.

In addition, being a serial entrepreneur, I also didn’t appreciate the idea of an ‘Editor’ driving around in a Porsche thanks to my years of hard work and research; while I receive a pittance for ‘every’ book sold. Forgive me if I’m hitting hard !

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Anna Burns is trade published. She writes fiction. You're planning on self publishing, and from what I've gathered you write military history. You wouldn't submit your work to editors who work with her.

I don't know any editors who drive Porsches; and if I did, I assure you that they'd earned them through consistent hard work, and not by taking credit for their authors' hard work. Editing is a very particular skill: it's difficult and exacting, and your suggestion that we rest on the laurels of the writers we work with is at best ill-informed.

I don’t want to go into the nitty-gritty of my business and financial plans, suffice it to say that I have a minimum of 500 potential contacts…, principally via the social media, all seven RHQs and other sources. (‘Septem Juncta In Uno’ - my book is regimental history)
Now…, I’ve been working intimately with Hong Kong for the past ten years, so I intend to have them print 500 books. (500 being the minimum quantity order) Although I’ve not yet contacted them concerning the costs as I’ve other more important issues to contend with, (like writing) I know from experience with having them print our catalogues, their average price is less than one third the price of what it would cost if I have the books printed here in Belgium.
(“500 exemplaires pour 8378 EUR+TVA”)

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I've worked in sales as well as editorial, and having five hundred contacts is nothing. You're not going to sell a book to even half of those contacts--one in ten is possible, but cold-calling sales people usually work to a target of perhaps 3%. If you print up 500 copies you're going to end up with a lot of those copies stuck in your garage, I'm afraid.

Years ago I carried out an analysis of the numbers of print sales self-published authors could expect. When I was generous with my numbers, it came out to well under one hundred copies. When I was a little more realistic, I reached a figure of 38 print sales per title.

It’s easy to calculate the profit margin…, 500 x £25 = £12.500, less the printing costs, shipping and the eventual 6% VAT.

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That's not your profit margin, though. That's your profit if you sell all 500 copies, and you've not factored in many of the costs of publication, or the cost of storage of the books, and so on. More to the point, you don't have the resources to reach enough people to sell that many copies. If you sell in line with my more generous figures, your workings should look like this:

100 x £25 = £12.500, less the publishing, storage, and printing costs, shipping and the eventual 6% VAT.

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And that's using my over-generous calculations.

However, here’s my problem ! What’s to stop the Chinese Company copying the contents (even if it is protected) and post it on some ‘Kindle’ or Alibaba site without permission ?

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If you use a reputable printer this is extremely unlikely to happen. Trade publishers use overseas printers every day, without piracy being an issue.

I ask that more through the fact that after selling the stock, I could then turn to an Editor saying; “here’s the proof that it sells”! He/she would then turn to their, outlets, but they’d then have Chinese competitors.
(an afterthought…, I suppose that’s the same for any book on the market !?!)

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If you do manage to sell all five hundred copies, that's not going to impress a publisher that much. Two thousand sales might, but more would be better. But then you're in that difficult zone where it's possible you've already exhausted all sales avenues. And then there's a question of rights: publishers like to publish books that have not been published before. Republishing a book causes confusion; and with all due respect, there are many errors in your posts, and your writing is very confusing: it is highly likely your book will contain those same errors--and that is definitely going to put publishers off taking your work any further.

I think you have to decide whether you want to trade or self publish your book, and then follow that path. Don't think that self publication is going to be a route into trade publishing, because it almost certainly won't be.

Iain2 said:

As for an Editor…, because I intend to self-publish, I don’t need one.

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You definitely do need an editor. Your comments here are confusing, convoluted, and full of errors. I understand that this is just an online forum and so you might not be trying too hard to get everything straight, but in my experience, people either write clearly or they don't.

I also do all the Photoshop images, design and layout aspects etc. I’ve even had permission from the Duke of Kent’s office (the Regimental Lieutenant Colonel, Brigadier Harry Nickerson) for the use of a painting in the Scots Guards Officer’s Mess at Aldershot for the cover photo.

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You might have been granted permission to use an image of the painting: but do you have permission from the photographer who took the photo of the painting? Because you will need that permission, and you'll almost certainly need to pay for that permission as you'll be using it for a commercial enterprise. You'll need permission from the copyright owners of every single image that you use in the book; and for every quote that you use, too. This does get expensive--I've seen quotes cost an author in excess of £1,500 just for use in one territory, and when the book was sold into multiple territories, those quotes all have to be renegotiated.

Concerning self-publishing in relation to the above trades. Writers, whether they work directly with an Editor or if they self-publish, they still need a VAT number. As such, the taxman and their parallel contributions inspector are constantly ‘eying them up.’

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As with any business, writers only require VAT numbers if they qualify to incur VAT.

Concerning my niche content, I’d like to add that it also deals with a niche market. As such and until advised differently, I won’t be selling to the general public…, at least not at the start. I don’t like ‘counting my chickens,’ however, if things don’t go to plan then the public will always be there as a backup.

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Why are you planning to restrict your sales in this way? It is not in your best interests. The single biggest promotional tool you have is the newness of your book. The only way you'll get any attention from influencers in this field--not just bloggers and reviewers, but also prolific readers, and experts in the field--is if you promote the book as a new and forthcoming title, and get them to help you spark a little excitement in its build-up to publication. By hiding your book away from this very powerful marketing tool you're doing yourself no favours.

Because of this niche market while focusing on NCOs and Guardsmen, (I’ve eliminated Napoleon and even Wellington takes a back seat) I’ve permitted myself to use military jargon, weapons and tactics plus ‘Waterloo’ swearing. As a consequence, most civilians would probably find the read confusing. However, it should appeal to the traditional Guardsman with the result being the best publicity in the world; ‘bouche à oreille’!
By then, if the first batch allows me to recover my costs, I’d willingly rewrite the book for the general public and even translate it to French !

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What you describe as a problem could in fact be your unique selling point: a book that really shows people what it was like for the guardsmen at that time. But it has to be written so that no one finds it confusing. You can't assume that the only people who will buy it will know and understand all the slang that you know and understand, for example.

And no: you can't publish it, write a more commonplace version, and publish that too. They would be very different books. Write a brilliant version that appeals to everyone and you will do so much better.

Firstly, please forgive me if I touched a nerve; there was absolutely no offence meant !
Please note the apostrophe I used for the word ‘Editor,’ indicating that the word was an example, integrating all those who earn a living thanks the time, stress and financial burden inflicted on all those who put pen to paper. As for my Anna Burns comment…, it does not need a psychologist’s degree to grasp the human reaction to such a mise-en-scene.

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Publishing professionals also invest time, stress and finances in the books they work on. You are being repeatedly rude about people who care passionately about the books they bring to market.

It’s easy for Authors who already have books in the shops and know the trade…, however, for the novice surfing the Internet and being told, “IF LUCKY, you will earn 28 pence per book,” which for me; even following a stock sell-out wouldn’t cover one voyage to RHQ. (and there’s been at least 15 over the past 6 years) http://blog.celandor.co.uk/?p=75
Yes, I know, this is an old 2013 blog. However, it could also mean that because of inflation, the taxable income could be less than 28 pence.

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Ignore that blog post. It's not reliable.

It's common for authors to be paid on cover price, not on net, which means their figures are incorrect. When royalties are based on net the percentages paid are higher than those they quote; and they tend to be on large volume sales, like book club sales, so returns are proportionately higher too. The sales numbers they refer to look to me like they're based on sales of self published authors, not trade published authors, because if trade published books only sold 79 copies in a year the publishers would go out of business; so again, the figures aren't reliable.

Helix: Lol…, I know two Editors very well and one is regularly invited to Buckingham Palace garden parties and dines on a weekly basis with Officers in the Brigade of Guards. The other has a garage for four cars ! OK…, AW tells me that this is unusual.
As such and as we all know the price of a book, who, then, is earning the ‘real’ money ? It’s certainly not the writer !

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Being invited to garden parties at the Palace does not earn one any money.

It is extremely unusual for editors to be wealthy. Trust me: I have been an editor for a long time; I know lots of editors; it is not a lucrative line of work.

You ask who is earning the "real money": well, books are a spectacularly low-profit enterprise. No one in publishing earns a lot. Even at director level, salaries are significantly lower than in other industries. Yes, some best-selling authors do really well, but they are the exception.

AW, your reply is very interesting and I’m pleased that book sales could eventually surpass the 500 mark. And getting back to my question, it also pleases me to learn that history fiction is less susceptible to be pirated.

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AW Admin did not tell you that your sales could surpass 500 copies.

Iain, I worry that you're going to launch yourself into self publishing without first fully understanding how publishing works; and if you do that, you risk losing a huge amount of money and perhaps even the rights to your book. Please spend a lot more time reading more reliable sources than the ones you've currently used; and what ever you do, if you want your book to be successful, use a good editor, and listen carefully to her advice.

Old Hack said:

Iain, I worry that you're going to launch yourself into self publishing without first fully understanding how publishing works;

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Yeah

'Potential' contacts are not worth diddly squat and being a member of the armed forces doesn't automatically give one vast numbers of buyers of one's book.

I knew a gentleman, now deceased, who worked his way up from drummer boy to Lieutenant Colonel in one of Scotland's leading Regiments. He met the queen, too, and sat beside her at a Regimental banquet. I found his self-published autobiography (written primarily for his grandchildren) including his extensive WW2 experiences battling up through Sicily and Italy to be a fantastic read but global sales didn't make it far into the hundreds at all despite all his army and regimental contacts both home and overseas.

He made nothing on it, but he knew what self-publishing meant and what he was getting into, and that without considerable effort and further expense he shouldn't anticipate many sales beyond immediate friends and family.

And his book wasn't priced at £25.

I don't want to be rude, but I've met a lot of queens.

mccardey said:

I don't want to be rude, but I've met a lot of queens.

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Ah, but have you met THE queen? And that's not the queen of queens.

Hello there, fellow countryman! Welcome!

AW can be a very good place to learn but you're going to have to listen to what people say, even if it's not something you want to hear. The people here have lots of experience in both trade and self-publishing and they all want to share it.

Iain2 said:

Forgive me if I’m hitting hard !

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Erm, you're not really hitting hard rather you are repeating old stereotypes that occur seldom rather than often. I mean, a porsche, really? Not in Belgium, I'm thinking. But I take it, as this is regimental history, you're not writing for the Belgian market, correct? Which is a shame perhaps, because you'll be missing out on a decent market of the Waterloo tourists. So Brexit is going to be real pain for you.

I can't determine if your book will be fiction or non-fiction, though. You appear to call it both? It's important to decide which it is as they're two very different markets.

However, here’s my problem ! What’s to stop the Chinese Company copying the contents (even if it is protected) and post it on some ‘Kindle’ or Alibaba site without permission ?

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I'm guessing, considering the topic of your book, chances will be slim of this happening. Ebooks are more readily pirated than print books and the printers themselves rarely engage in direct pirating since they'll be shooting themselves in the foot. So unless this is a widely popular book promising lots of profit (which in a niche market also appears unlikely) chances are nobody is going to bother pirating you. Too much work, not enough profit.

Old Hack said:

As with any business, writers only require VAT numbers if they qualify to incur VAT.

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I looked at it a while ago so my memory is hazy but I do believe that here, in Belgium, authors are required to have a VAT number even if they're too small to actually incur VAT. Only exception being (really hazy memory now) when the writing is a one-off. Since Iain appears to intend to also selling his work himself, he will definitely need a VAT number for that.

mccardey said:

Yeah

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Nor do you, the OP, understand how successful self-publishing works. Hint: hardcovers aren't the route to take.

Also, on "contacts" or followers or relatives or very best forum buddies, expect 1% to buy. If you get 5%, it's a miracle. Go ask anyone with a really popular blog on writing what the blog does for their novel sales.

ETA: once a book is out in any format, if it's successful, it will be pirated. My pirate reads are probably double of what my sales are, the best I can figure. It is what it is. There are thieves everywhere, and there is no lock that will prevent intellectual property theft and chasing pirates around with take-down notices is a waste of time that could be spent writing the next book.

Best of luck to you anyway.

I don't recall anyone saying you were rude or had offended anyone.

Not sure I follow the purpose of the last post although I enjoyed the short pipes and drums clip. Maybe I've just never noticed it before when watching pipe bands but the synchronised kilt swinging was impressive.

Good luck, however you choose to proceed.